In a new weekly feature, The Crimson will be tracking the successes (and potential failures) of some of Harvard’s most successful graduates not to use their Harvard degrees. While a tour through professional sports is not exactly a who’s who of Harvard alumni, a few athletes have taken their game to the next level. From Jeremy Lin to Ryan Fitzpatrick, the Crimson maintains a presence outsaide of the labs and law offices of the world.
After falling to the Jets last Sunday, Ryan Fitzpatrick ’05 and the Buffalo Bills dropped their second straight, this week being defeated by the Dallas Cowboys, 44-7. The 37-point loss was the Bills’ largest margin of defeat of the season.
Fitzpatrick, who went 20-31, threw for a season-low 146 yards and was intercepted a season-high three times. The Bills’ sole touchdown was a three-yard pass from Fitzpatrick to wide receiver David Nelson in the second quarter. Buffalo trailed 28-7 at halftime, even though all three of Fitzpatrick’s interceptions came in the second half.
Buffalo, now 5-4, dropped back a game in the AFC East as the New England Patriots defeated the Jets on Sunday night. Coming off one of his worst performances of the season, Fitzpatrick and the Bills will travel to Miami next Sunday to take on the Dolphins.
But things weren't all bad for Crimson alums on Sunday.
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A dilemma for many athletes is balancing school and their sport. Yale quarterback Patrick Witt ’12 had to face this challenge in a big way—he had to decide whether to play against Harvard this Saturday or to take his interview for the Rhodes Scholarship, which happened to be on the same day. He chose The Game.
This is no decision that could have been made by picking a daisy in a field, plucking the petals off one by one, and saying “play, interview, play, interview…” This was a serious pro-con list situation.
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Percy Haughton is undoubtedly one of the most successful coaches in Harvard football history, but while his results are indisputable, his legendary motivational tactics are dubious.
The legend of Haughton goes like this: In 1908 right before The Game, Haughton strangled a bulldog in front of his players in an attempt to motivate them to beat Yale.
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The top five in last week's power rankings did not fail to impress last weekend. With just a few more games remaining in the fall season, a few teams are really making some noise in the Ivy League.
5. Winter Sports Hype
Ok, this isn’t a team by any stretch of the imagination. But with student tickets to the men’s hockey home opener against Princeton on Friday nearly impossible to obtain—Who doesn’t like free?—the official start of the winter athletic season is just around the corner. Get excited.
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Harvard freshman right tackle Will Whitman doesn’t have much in common with Jerry Rice.
But the Lexington, Ky., native does share one similarity with the greatest wide receiver of all time—both established themselves playing for FCS schools, and for that, Whitman has the chance to be honored in the wideout’s name.
Last week, the rookie was mentioned on the watch list for the Jerry Rice Award, which honors the most outstanding freshman player in the Football Championship Subdivision. This is the first time the honor, presented by The Sports Network, is being awarded.
The trophy is named for Rice, the Hall of Fame receiver who was an FCS (then Division I-AA) star at Mississippi Valley State University during his college days. Whitman and 17 other FCS rookies were named to the watch list for their contributions to similarly-small football programs.
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